Kerala, first time away from Madurai

okokok so much to say. START NOW.
Last Saturday we took a four hour drive to thekkedy, a tiny town carved into a mountainside which is flanked by the periyar tiger reserve. The entire ride everyone in my car sang, anything from soulful r and b to gavin degraw (im sure you can tell where my influence came in on those two ends of the spectrum). We got to the hotel, which was absolutely awesome, so beautiful, and the weather up in the mountains is much cooler than madurai. We walked around for a few hours in the town, where there are a ton of kashmiri vendors selling cloth and dishes and all sorts of spices. Thekkedy is the spice capital of india, and everything always smelled really good there. So in that vein we went on a tour of a spice garden, where we learned all about the production and harvesting of over 50 different spices. It was actually really cool, and our tour guide was a wealth of knowledge about all things spicy.
Then i rode on an elephant. it was stupid and touristy thing to do, but you only live once, right? they are much taller than they look. That night we went back to the hotel and got drunk on bad indian beer. its like im in college again!
On sunday we woke up at 6 am for a trek in the periyar reserve. The most exciting thing about this excursion was the huge leeches that covered the forest floor. They were just like huge black worms, and you had to wear these special canvas boots so they wouldnt bite through your shoes. The trek was really beautiful and our guide was hilarious. He kept stealing our cameras and taking a ton of pictures of us while we werent looking, and then running far ahead of us. We found a porcupine quill, saw some wild boar, water buffallo and various types of frogs. we had a free afternoon where we just walked around town and hung out, and then in the late afternoon we went on a two hour boat tour on periyar lake. i got into a really interesting argument with john about the commodification of nature, and how humans are terrible to the world around them. oh well. that was pretty much the most productive thing about that trip.
Then back to the hotel, went to some shady resteraunt called "cardamom corner" and went to bed. ok i am boring myself, so now im moving to bulletpoints:
~morning visit to a tea factory, which was smelly, hot and kinda awesome. Some workers were on strike, and they were very tight-lipped about that.
~In the afternoon we took a 5-hour van ride to kottayam, i listened to rap on my ipod with tommy. we bonded.
~next morning we took a five hour tour on a houseboat in allepy, the kerala backwater. it was basically like a tropical venice. it was really really relaxing, oh so scenic.
~took a two hour van ride to cochin, went for a boat ride around the harbor there. Went to see a cathedral from 1400 in fort cochin, then went to a place called "jewtown" and saw a synagogue built in 1500. there are only like 3 real jews left in the town, but it was still pretty cool to see hebrew everywhere.
~wednesday night we watched a kathakali dance program. it was one of the most amazing things i have ever seen. please, for your own sake, try and look up a video of it somewhere. it will turn your head inside out.
~on thursday we took another boat tour around this system of rivers and canals that was also really beautiful. we did a ton of boat-riding this trip. not sure why, but i loved it.
~thursday night at 11:30 pm we got on a 12-hour train ride back to madurai. it was basically exactly like the darjeeling express train. i have never been in a sleeper car before. now i want to live in one. whos with me!? well, im with me.
overall it was an amazing trip. i was so excited and happy to be going on tour, but i never could have imagined how great it would actually be. the group just got so much more cohesive and i feel really close to at least five people here that i can think of. we are all really different, but we all complement ech other so well. i love them all, i cant imagine it with any other people, they are all so sweet and just generally good, y'know? i could not be happier with them. i am kind of coming down from a travelling high, and i am remembering now what it feels like to be with people my own age all the time, who actually speak the language that i speak, and i really enjoyed that. so now i am realizing how much i miss that, and even though my host family is really really good to me, i sometimes still feel isolated here, which is okay.
i am also about to start a really busy two-week period, with final papers and exams coming up very soon. so i guess i am also not really looking forward to that. but after that i get to start my independent study which should be awesome. im still unsure as to what ill be doing it on, but ill keep you updated on that subject.
so the whole experience in kerala was one big adventure, and thats what i came here to do, and i am feeling very accomplished in that sense. yay me!
ok now i have to go home for lunch and then a bike ride to some huge sacred water tank on the outskirts of madurai. exciting! i hope everyone is well, and if you wrote me an email recently i will try to get back to you as soon as i can. im sorry if this was boring. its only MY LIFE.
love and miss all of you,
emma
ps- kerala is a communist state, so whenever anyone had any food i would declare that it belonged to the people and everyone would eat it together, and thats how i mooched off of everyone and saved all my rupees. yay communism!
pps- i discovered that i love banana chips. they are great. you should try them. and also i forgot to bring my camera to kerala, so ill just have to stel someone else's pix. KEWL.